A major crisis is looming in our future and I am not the only one saying so. In the TIME Briefs of January 27, 2017, Michael Gorbachev warns us of potential war on a global scale. Paul Ryan warns us of a financial collapse and they are not the only doomsayers; there are many more. I predict the same. My prediction is based on my analysis of where the USA is on the lifecycle. (1)

The USA is on the aging side of the lifecycle curve, at the end of Aristocracy and the beginning of Recrimination. In this phase, people are frustrated with and angered by the decline. They attribute the demise of American’s position in the world to a lack of leadership, and turn against their leaders. This phenomenon is evidenced by presidents’ declining approval ratings. Donald Trump was at 37%, the lowest any president ever had. I believe if Hillary Clinton had been elected, she would not have fared much better. With the aging of the system, Americans’ approval of their leaders will only get worse. Someone has to take the blame…

What characterizes Recrimination is disintegration. Like an old person’s body falling apart, the disparate parts are not cooperating well anymore. The signs of disintegration are already here. Crossing the aisle at the Congress is only a memory. Some cities, intent on protecting undocumented immigrants, are refusing to adhere to federal decisions. Governor Jerry Brown of California announced from the stairs of the Capitol in Sacramento that he will defend the LGBTQ community at all costs. Other signs of disintegration are the millions of people at Women’s Marches declaring, “Trump is not my president,” and a movement that aims to sue the government over executive orders. And there is already heavy unrest. Police are being accused of brutality, unnecessarily murdering innocent people. It is not the Doris Day 1950s anymore. Planned real estate units with walls, a gate and guards is becoming ubiquitous.

What is next?

Private police and security guards will be stationed in front of private homes. Today this happens only at the residences of diplomats; in the future it will become the norm for common citizens in the US, as it is today in Brazil.

Disintegration means there is no trust in government. Increasingly parents do not trust public schools with their children and home schooling is less and less rare. Charter schools are appearing like mushrooms after the rain.

Will Trump “clean the swamp?” He got elected to reverse the decline of America, to make America great again.

It won’t happen in a democracy. To make the necessary changes requires bold, strategic decisions to be made. For that, he needs to coalesce political power. That won’t happen because of the disintegration that characterizes the state of Recrimination. . .

Fact, he already failed in several of his attempts.

On the macro level, the manifestations of disintegration could be the breakdown of the United States, with California, Texas, or southern states actively seeking to pull out of the union. This is not a nightmare, or someone dreaming a dream. Serious people in daylight are discussing it.

The despair that the desired changes are not happening, that the situation is only getting worse, will cause frustration and a search for scapegoats. Not strange. Whenever there is trouble and serious pain, people look for scapegoats; people cannot accept reality without an explanation and personalizing the cause of their pain.

Throughout history, the Jewish people served that function. I predict there will be a major rise in anti-Semitism in this country. The first signs of it are already happening: Over thirty Jewish social or prayer centers were threatened with violence just in the first two months of 2017. Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia were vandalized. As the situation becomes more and more difficult, ostracizing Israel, even to the point of supporting its demise, will to be expected.

The crisis I see coming is not just in the United States. Europe is on the same aging curve, even further down than the USA. Europe will elect fascist leaders who will promise to solve the problems by verdict. They will fail like Trump will fail too. Hostility toward Europe’s Muslim population will grow, and the manifestation of social disintegration and confrontation will be even more acute. The answer? A search for a strong leader that will be able to harness democracy. That is called fascism. And anti-Semitism will not skip Europe. On the contrary it will be more open than the USA. They have the tradition.

As China flexes its muscles, I wonder how Japan will react. And what will China do with the billions of American monies in its coffers. If the international community replaces the dollar as the vehicle of international transactions, and creates a different tool composed of multiple currencies, it will speed up the decline of America as a world leader and push its position on the lifecycle curve down even further.

Russia has a demographic problem: insufficient reproduction while other ethnic groups are growing. The country needs any ethnic Russians they can find. That was one of the reasons for Russia to take over Crimea and to support the ethnic Russian demographic in Eastern Ukraine. Will ethnic Russians in Latvia and North Kazakhstan be next? Will Putin, or his successor, try to bring them into the Russian fold? He might have to do it because there are signs of unrest in Russia. Manifestations against Medvedev that he is corrupt. But that is only a prelude. People do not dare to attack Putin so they test their political muscle against Medvedev. Putin is smart. He can read the political tealeaves. He needs to do again something to increase his popularity, and what is more popular than some heroic national pro Russian act of defending the Russians that live in neighboring countries. The world community might interpret that action as further aggression. How will it react? Confrontations are becoming more ominous. Instead of reducing nuclear armaments, both the USA and Russia are talking about increasing their arsenals.

Nuclear confrontation of major powers I believe is improbable. Both Russia and USA know what the repercussions can be for their countries. But that is not the case with the radical Muslim terrorists who might eventually get hold of a tactical nuclear device and explode it in a major city. Since radical terrorism is a grassroots phenomenon, I see no way Western civilization can eradicate it.

I cannot predict when all of this will happen because the lifecycle curve is not measured by time. But all of it, or parts of it might happen in my lifetime. Actually it is already happening.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj – “There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche.”

Thank you for your analysis of the current world situation. After reading this article I find myself remembering what Dr. Gaves foresaw about how humanity would arrive at a mayor turning point in consciousness. This explains his “Momentous Leap” quote. He predicted that humanity would undergo a fundamental paradigm shift in thinking. From thinking in scarcity and poverty (the first value systems from Beige to Green who are continuously preoccupied to save themselves from scarcity), to the future individual who would only think in terms of abundance and affluence (Yellow and beyond). Or, in other words, we predicted a shift from poverty consciousness towards affluence consciousness.

I think human consciousness will be forced to take the “momentum leap” very soon as all external systems that were build on 1st tier value will collapse, and more and more I keep having this eerie feeling that human kind is getting to the precipice point and end of the current civilization will happen soon.

Since there has been life on this planet , this planet has experienced the rise and fall of 16 civilizations. I am not sure why we think ours can sustain since we follow the same principles and are aware of the lessons from those last 15 civilizations.

In the 70’s, Krishna Gopi was trying to make the world aware that by activating 100% of the human brain by following certain “disciplines” ( which is part of a biological design that is available to every single human) , it would change the way man experienced consciousness and the world. I feel that Gopi was trying to give man a tool to go thru the ““Momentous Leap” / 2nd tier worldview that Gaves spoke about. Since the spiral dynamics theory is based on humans ability or “brain capacity” to deal with “external changes.

But it seems that our current civilization is still so stuck in its 1st tier ways that only a great calamity will force the cohort that survives, to take a new path and a build a new system that is based on 2nd tier value .It could also go back down in consciousness to the “Beige” level , which was also predicted by Dr. Graves.

This was Gopi quote that was written in the1970’s & ironically it still applies today in 2017.
“In no other period of history were the learned so mistrustful of the divine possibilities in man as they are now.” – Gopi Krishna

I hope mankind chooses to wake up sooner than later and collectively decides to transition to a new civilization that is based on 2nd tier principles.

These problems are real, and your analysis and predictions are useful (if not necessarily accurate).

But the problems you mention are small beer compared to our real problems.

Our real problems are due to the fact that homo sapiens, as the apex predator species, is simply running out of rope as it continues to rape its own environment – an environment from which there is no escape.

We are now deep into what knowledgeable scientists call “The Sixth Great Extinction”. Officially called “The Holocene, it has been dubbed “The Anthropocene”, because it is due entirely to the destructive and apparently unstoppable behavior of our species. It is the disease of civilization from which there is no cure. And it is happening at an astonishing rate, never seen before in the five previous extinction periods.

The things that are happening right now are beyond catastrophic. They are apocalyptic. Yes, life on earth will continue, but our species (like most) will not be a part of that life. It is going to be cockroaches and jellyfish (or maybe less) for a long, long time as the earth goes through the necessary purgative and regenerative cycle.

And the time frame for the onset of this death of our species is very short indeed. Why? Because collectively, we have turned our world into a heat engine, with dozens of self-reinforcing feedback loops. That means that if we could snap our fingers today, and stop all new pollution producing behavior, and magically get the world population down to a billiion, the planet would continue to heat up at an astounding rate regardless.

Admittedly, these scientific facts and apocalyptic predictions are difficult to contemplate – and almost everyone remains in deep denial because of the immense existential pain that comes from such contemplation. But this future is rushing towards us at unimaginable speed. We didn’t see it coming 50 years ago, because of the climatology time lag that even our best scientists couldn’t properly suss out until it was too late to reverse – even if humanity had the will to do what was necessary, which we clearly do not.

So what is the best course of action we can take right now? How can we find meaning in these events that are coming upon us? How should we live, when our collective life as a species is coming to an end?

We are in the exact same predicament we would be if scientist discovered a giant asteroid coming straight for our planet. Indeed, such an event caused mass extinction before.

So if you’re really looking for something to worry about, Ichak – I’d say that would be it. Your issues are the stuff of human history – of civilization.

These issues are what happens when there is no more human history at all, only natural history that some other intelligent species will (perhaps) examine some time in the distant future.

Thank you for the good work you have done, and continue to do. Unfortunately, because we have not been truly conscious of what the Buddha calls “the interdependence of all phenomena” collectively we have not been mindful enough to avert this time.

So using your model of the corporate lifecycle, as a species we are at the end stage, or perhaps the one before that. The point is, that’s the real news of the day, and having an adequate personal response to that news is what is truly worth contemplating right now.

I hope that you are doing better and while waiting for surgery able to maintain your spirit. This post is closer than ever before to many of the opinions that I wrote on your blog this past year.

America has entered recrimination years ago. We all ignored the signs a red flag was raised in the last election campaign where President Obama tried desperately to keep his legacy alive by pushing Hilary Clinton for 8 more years and failed.

Like in the last days of the roman empire society was breaking up where the citizens realized that they are no longer able to live on “bread and amusement” and before falling apart The Roman empire turned into an anarchy in disguise of democracy.

When a sitting President campaigns on the lack of legitimacy of a candidate, and claims that he, or she, is not “fit for office” it is nothing but acknowledgment that the MT&R index of our society is hovering around ZERO or in other world complete disrespect to the voters or their rights.

America was formed (after a bloody civil war) on a contract between government of law granting the citizens freedom and pursuit of happiness. The national anthem talks about the land of the free and the home of their brave. In return the citizens agreed to abide by the rule of law as a way for them to pursuit of happiness. We formed three branches of government, a system for elections all based on high index of MT&R. The president controls the executive branch congress enact laws and regulation and 9 supreme partisan “justices” (all lawyers of course) make sure that the constitution is interpreted by lawyers.

Over 300+ years and 45 presidents America turned from the rule of law and pursuit of happiness and became the “rule of lawyers” and pursuit of money.

That is my friend anarchy and the only reason why no one use the terminology “recrimination” is because not enough people in government of the media read you books. Rather we call it a swamp.

You are right in that Donald Trump was elected president to drain the swamp, but we are all in denial how big the swamp is and that it contains all branches of government.

Anarchy started with frivolous law suits and legislative judges. Judges are sworn to defend the constitution, but many ignore the law and defend their corrupted governments. It is not new. Remember Bush vs Gore, where the supreme court ruled to stop recount because no one had trust in the “chads”, and made George Bush President of the US.

Our MT&R is at lowest ever, States sue the federal government and federal judges “stays” the President executive orders. Reality is that justice is only affordable for a lot of money and is often traded for “cost of litigation”. See the latest settlement on Trump university.

This recrimination has been evolving for more than 20 years, it intensified when Clinton became president and drove America to become a “service society”. When work (especially manufacturing) became a bad word and colleges produced graduates that could not find jobs that produce work for non college graduates. Labor law and environmental regulation drove anybody except lawyers and accountants our of the cities and created seas of poverty among the poor, destroyed the middle class, and resulted in corrupted local government. Did you notice that we pay sales tax on everything that we buy, except for fees from attorneys or accountants?

What caused Trump to win is that for most Americans life were no longer affordable, and safety is limited to wealth people with private protection citizens cant trust the police and police is intimidated by citizens. In America the police protects illegal criminals from deportation.

The general attorney of California file suites against the general attorney of the US.

As far as future, I agree with you that Trump may not be successful. The reason is simple. There is no precedence for a swamp that voluntarily agreed to be drained (maybe with the exception of De Clerk who voluntarily handed the rule to Mandela in South Africa). All other attempts to drain the swamp caused blood and lives.

I am not a fan of Arduan in Turkey, but when he survived a cue last year he had to remove thousands of judges and military officials, all people that are practically have no accountability because they are there for life.

What we see in Washington is the fight of the swamp or survival, the cost are citizens we pay more taxes receive less services and vote for people whom we don’t trust or respect.

In today’s life in America you go to the congressman senator, Mayor or any elected officer they ask you for a donation as a condition to talk to you and of course the more you donate the more attention you get.

So is it Armageddon? Should we start a revolution?, join a militia? Or immigrate to china? Not necessarily. I believe that we will come out of it somehow and the reason is that despite our mediocre education this country is still literate and the influence of fanatic leaders religious or gangsters is lower than in many other countries. I think that the western word is into a correction of capitalism.

The reality is that if corporation are allowed to rule or even influence our society they must adhere to the rule of law in the capacity that allow freedom, pursuit of happiness and the rule of law not the rule of lawyers.

I don know if it takes blood to reform the judicial system, create oversight that legislative judges will be removed, and legislators will have to qualify for re election. We need to empower the chief justice (Roberts) and the department of Justice to constantly review the performance of the courts at any level, judges will have to recertify every 10 years (like doctors who wish to continue their license to practice medicine).

A similar scrutiny should apply to education. We need to understand that any society needs balance that include scientists, engineers, physicians, and other professionals essential to maintain the necessary services of public health safety and the only way to allow citizens to be both free health and happy is to make it affordable to live based on income from employment in a capacity that the majority of the citizens can achieve. That means that the government takes care of the sick, and every child is given an opportunity to become an independent and free citizen.

We need to understand that Boeing cannot design airplanes without engineer or manufacture anything without human workers (regardless of artificial intelligence or automation. We need to understand that if Medical school costs half a million dollars, we will never have enough doctors or affordable care. That if we allow class action suits to become circus of the media, products will never be affordable, because in our capitalist culture the buyer not only pays for everything (including the frivolous regulations or claims that only balloons overhead costs).

We may want to revisit election law, especially now that we are all concerned about the ability of local or foreign powers so meddle with it or manipulate elections.

We can only survive if we hope for the best and try to influence change democratically and peacefully..

It is difficult to be holier than the Pope and make a prediction about the stage of the lifecycle of better than Dr. Adizes and I agree one.
America is still the world leader.
Releasing this place can change lot in the world.
Can anything do to change this scenario or is it not reversible? What do?
And next question is about else.
I am interested in how the master assesses the stage of the life cycle of Russia.
Is it possible to conceive it as an inheritor of the USSR (as a system) and, in general, Russia before 1917 year.

I read this Insight (as I do all of them), but, as with other insights that I read, I look to thoughts of my own as to how it applies to my personal or business life, and usually in a positive way.
However, this Insight left me with a sense of dread and despair….apparently that is the way you feel too….you normally provide your point of view as to how to turn things around, but nothing here. Are we so far down the line that, without some type of dire event, we will not be able to turn this battleship in another direction…are we truly, in your eyes, a terminally ill patient? Would love to know more of your thoughts on this…perhaps writing another Adizes Insight??

And what about our emerging economies, such as Brazil and India? Massive corruption scams have surfaced in both. The present regime in India is also Fascist in some way, though with a moderate face and with a better track record of getting things done. But the society is in for a phase of polarization. Sure enough, we have entered into a phase of ‘de-globalization’. I agree that the outlook is dismal and worrying.

Although there is a temptation to assume that history’s future is predictable, the randomness of events refutes this.

For instance, the nuclear fission was almost discovered by Fermi in 1935, when an experiment with neutrons was done on a wooden bench (which slowed down the neutrons to the fissionable energy). However, it was not replicated on a steel bench. The whole world history would have took a different path by the Nazi Germans, then in the front of nuclear science.

The fate of post-war Europe changed when someone walked into a bathroom before the second bomb to, be carried into a conference room, was primed. Hitler survived the attempt to shorten the WW II.

Zvi my friend
Hag sameah to you and all your loved ones and am israel
Life cycle is not random.
My prediction of the future is not based on evens but on ptedictable phases of evolution or decline
I agree with you that the symptoms of aging might not be the one i anticipate but i am sure there will be some
Hope to get together soon
Itz

I hope that you are doing better and while waiting for surgery able to maintain your spirit. This post is closer than ever before to many of the opinions that I wrote on your blog this past year.

America has entered recrimination years ago. We all ignored the signs a red flag was raised in the last election campaign where President Obama tried desperately to keep his legacy alive by pushing Hilary Clinton for 8 more years and failed.

Like in the last days of the roman empire society was breaking up where the citizens realized that they are no longer able to live on “bread and amusement” and before falling apart The Roman empire turned into an anarchy in disguise of democracy.

When a sitting President campaigns on the lack of legitimacy of a candidate, and claims that he, or she, is not “fit for office” it is nothing but acknowledgment that the MT&R index of our society is hovering around ZERO or in other world complete disrespect to the voters or their rights.

America was formed (after a bloody civil war) on a contract between government of law granting the citizens freedom and pursuit of happiness. The national anthem talks about the land of the free and the home of their brave. In return the citizens agreed to abide by the rule of law as a way for them to pursuit of happiness. We formed three branches of government, a system for elections all based on high index of MT&R. The president controls the executive branch congress enact laws and regulation and 9 supreme partisan “justices” (all lawyers of course) make sure that the constitution is interpreted by lawyers.

Over 300+ years and 45 presidents America turned from the rule of law and pursuit of happiness and became the “rule of lawyers” and pursuit of money.

That is my friend anarchy and the only reason why no one use the terminology “recrimination” is because not enough people in government of the media read you books. Rather we call it a swamp.

You are right in that Donald Trump was elected president to drain the swamp, but we are all in denial how big the swamp is and that it contains all branches of government.

Anarchy started with frivolous law suits and legislative judges. Judges are sworn to defend the constitution, but many ignore the law and defend their corrupted governments. It is not new. Remember Bush vs Gore, where the supreme court ruled to stop recount because no one had trust in the “chads”, and made George Bush President of the US.

Our MT&R is at lowest ever, States sue the federal government and federal judges “stays” the President executive orders. Reality is that justice is only affordable for a lot of money and is often traded for “cost of litigation”. See the latest settlement on Trump university.

This recrimination has been evolving for more than 20 years, it intensified when Clinton became president and drove America to become a “service society”. When work (especially manufacturing) became a bad word and colleges produced graduates that could not find jobs that produce work for non college graduates. Labor law and environmental regulation drove anybody except lawyers and accountants our of the cities and created seas of poverty among the poor, destroyed the middle class, and resulted in corrupted local government. Did you notice that we pay sales tax on everything that we buy, except for fees from attorneys or accountants?

What caused Trump to win is that for most Americans life were no longer affordable, and safety is limited to wealth people with private protection citizens cant trust the police and police is intimidated by citizens. In America the police protects illegal criminals from deportation.

The general attorney of California file suites against the general attorney of the US.

As far as future, I agree with you that Trump may not be successful. The reason is simple. There is no precedence for a swamp that voluntarily agreed to be drained (maybe with the exception of De Clerk who voluntarily handed the rule to Mandela in South Africa). All other attempts to drain the swamp caused blood and lives.

I am not a fan of Arduan in Turkey, but when he survived a cue last year he had to remove thousands of judges and military officials, all people that are practically have no accountability because they are there for life.

What we see in Washington is the fight of the swamp or survival, the cost are citizens we pay more taxes receive less services and vote for people whom we don’t trust or respect.

In today’s life in America you go to the congressman senator, Mayor or any elected officer they ask you for a donation as a condition to talk to you and of course the more you donate the more attention you get.

So is it Armageddon? Should we start a revolution?, join a militia? Or immigrate to china? Not necessarily. I believe that we will come out of it somehow and the reason is that despite our mediocre education this country is still literate and the influence of fanatic leaders religious or gangsters is lower than in many other countries. I think that the western word is into a correction of capitalism.

The reality is that if corporation are allowed to rule or even influence our society they must adhere to the rule of law in the capacity that allow freedom, pursuit of happiness and the rule of law not the rule of lawyers.

I don know if it takes blood to reform the judicial system, create oversight that legislative judges will be removed, and legislators will have to qualify for re election. We need to empower the chief justice (Roberts) and the department of Justice to constantly review the performance of the courts at any level, judges will have to recertify every 10 years (like doctors who wish to continue their license to practice medicine).

A similar scrutiny should apply to education. We need to understand that any society needs balance that include scientists, engineers, physicians, and other professionals essential to maintain the necessary services of public health safety and the only way to allow citizens to be both free health and happy is to make it affordable to live based on income from employment in a capacity that the majority of the citizens can achieve. That means that the government takes care of the sick, and every child is given an opportunity to become an independent and free citizen.

We need to understand that Boeing cannot design airplanes without engineer or manufacture anything without human workers (regardless of artificial intelligence or automation. We need to understand that if Medical school costs half a million dollars, we will never have enough doctors or affordable care. That if we allow class action suits to become circus of the media, products will never be affordable, because in our capitalist culture the buyer not only pays for everything (including the frivolous regulations or claims that only balloons overhead costs).

We may want to revisit election law, especially now that we are all concerned about the ability of local or foreign powers so meddle with it or manipulate elections.

We can only survive if we hope for the best and try to influence change democratically and peacefully..

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Please note:

The insights presented in these blogs are the personal insight of Dr. Ichak Kalderon Adizes and do not necessarily express the opinion or position of the Adizes Institute or its staff individually or as a group.

DISCLAIMER: The insights presented in these blogs are the personal insight of Dr. Ichak Kalderon Adizes and do not necessarily express the opinion or position of the Adizes Institute or its staff individually or as a group.